One room cold- what pipes are what...help
 

I bought a home in Ct a few years back and I am trying to figure out the heating system. It is a raised ranch style home, three bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, dining room and livingroom upstairs.
Rec room, office, half bath and laundry room downstairs

I have a oil fed boiler with hot water baseboard. It is a hot water on demand system and from what I can see it is original. (1985)
There are three zones:
1- bedrooms with the thermostat in the master bedroom
2- dining room, living room and kitchen- thermostat in dining room
3- basement rec room- thermostat down there
The 2 full baths upstairs I believe are on the bedroom run
The rec room has one run, and noting on other 2 sides of home where one is a room and a laundry room and half bath

The zone valves:
1 is located in the furnace room which supplies the bedrooms
the other 2 are on opposite side of basement in drop ceiling, below the living room.

There is an expansion tank in the furnace room with a tire type valve on top. ( I assume this is to release air)

Issue is I want to know what pipes are for what exactly. There is an issue of one of the bedrooms that remains cold quite often. I feel the baseboard and it is warm but doesnt really throw heat. I thought it was maybe due to it being the end of the run however I am fairly sure that it is in the middle. The cold bedroom is also over the attached garage however so is the master bedroom.
Basically my kids are uite chilly and the notion that it will help their immune system doesnt seem to fly with the wife...
I can and will take pictures however would need to know how to post them.
Recently there has been a loud clanking noise periodically while sitting in the living room and when in the bedroom there seems to be what I assume is normal rattling noises. The clanking noise is noticable more often the prior years.
The guy I bought the home from was a DIYer so I am fairly sure that he did alot of work himself thoughout the years.
Is there a way to "trace" the pipes?
Why would one room remain cold?
Thanks in advance

Have you tried to bleed any air out of the system?

Mark

I tried to push that valve piece on top of the expansion tank once a year or so ago...is that they proper way to do it?

I went back and read your post more carefully, you should really hire a plumber that knows boiler systems to come out, and run you through a lesson on its operation, I think, in the long run this would be money well spent.

The small valve (scrader valve) on the top of the expansion tank is to put air in, or rather to adjust bladder pressure, if you have let the air out there then you will definately need that expert, to set the system back up properly.

Air evacuation valves are generally at high points on the piping, and at each radiator.

Mark

No you want air in that tank, put a tire pressure gauge on it should be between with in 3 psi of your heating system water pressure. In your cold room on the baseboards look for a valve on one of the ends, that's where you can bleed air from.

Can't have any water pressure influence on the water side when checking air pressure in the tank. If he has a common set up, the tank will need removed to check and adjust the air pressure correctly now.

The system probably has a fair amount of air in it. Without pics of the whole set up. hard to explain how to purge the air out, if a purge set up is on the system.

here are some pic I took tonight. I pulled off the end caps in the three bedrooms and there is no bleeder so not sure of whats next.

Can you tell from the pictures? I would think that the little blue cover on the bottom of the exspansion tank would be the scrader valve to "fill" the bladder... Is the little thing on top of the air scoop the bleeder?

The brass device on the top of the scoop is the auto air vent, the blue cap on the tank has the schrader inside it for checking/adding/removing air pressure. The return line has a purge set up on it, and that is what is used to remove the majority of the air from the system, then the auto vent is suppose to remove the rest as it circulates through the system.

A hose is attached to the drain valve. The shut off below that is closed, then the drain valve is opened, and fresh water is added to force the water and air out the hose.

Slowly getting the idea, but there seems to be several places where a hose could be hooked up. What steps should I take next? I am not sure about supply, return, etc so I am going to try to take better pic's and then put arrows to certain things as well as numbers so that you or someone could help me identify the different items. With the items that you identified above, would hat mean that there could be no bleeders on the actual pipes prior to the fins? Also I plan on ( after looking at the actual baseboard) taking them apart and cleaning them as the dust in there can't be helping the overall function.
I will attempt to take better pictures today in the mean time that you for your patience. I have thus far learned a lot from all and appreciate it.

You need to find out how the heating pipes to the cold room are routed, for example is it an individual loop from the supply branch off (manifold) down by the furnace coming right back to the return manifold versus part of a loop that went through several rooms. There are (should be) valves for each loop at the manifold so you can balance the heat among the rooms.

If you let air out of the expansion tank, you have to put it back in. A reasonable starting calibration is to depressurize the entire system, empty all the water from the expansion tank, blow the bladder, if any, to the bottom so all the empty space is on the air side (as opposed to on the water side), and put the tank back. Since the preceding is hard to do, calibrating the tank is expressed in terms of pounds per square inch pumped into the air valve. An expansion tank mounted sideways or hanging below the pipe must have a good bladder to work properly.

Check the baseboard radiators themselves for air valves. Because there is no riser to collect a quantity of air between bleedings, you have to make the rounds and bleed these valves every so often until you get water coming out as soon as you open the bleed valve.

Another method of balancing the heat is to adjust the louvers on the radiators in the warmer rooms. This will slow down the heating of the room with the thermostat and hopefully warm up the cold room.

Is there a way to trace the pipes? A lot of this loop is concealed in the finished ceilings of the garage so there is no way for me to really get an idea of what's leading to what. With thgat said I am not sure about what pipes that come off the actuall boiler are what. Does the return go through the front etc or the pipe that comes out and goes through the air scoop, is that the starting point of the loop throughout the house?
Manifold?

Ok here are some pictures that I was able to add numbers to.
Attachment 29887

Attachment 29888

Attachment 29889

Looking for some help to see if I have it right as to whats what however I am not sure on most...
1-
2-
3-
4-
5-
6-
7-
9-
10-
11-
12-
13-Scoop and auto vent
14- expansion tank
15-
On the side where 11 comes out there is also a few other pipes one of which has a hose type thing on it that goes nowhere, just hangs...
:huh:
Also there are a few places that look like they can be drain via a faucet like #7,11 etc

2,3,5,6 basically just look like isolation And drain valves to me kind of hard to tell.

If you let air out of the vent then your fine. You need to go to the baseboard in the room where it isn't real hot and see if there is a bleeder. It will be a small looking square or just a slot that you can turn out. Chance are there is air in there that is also usually what's causes that banging sounds.

What you have as 7, is the purge valve. The valve below it it what needs to be closed during purge. #5 may be the water fee valve, can't tell from the pick. But the feed valve needs tom be open and adding water during the purge.

Your return pipe from the heating loops if you have more then one may have butterfly valves to close so you can purge individual loops. Can't tell from here.